Four ways you can use TikTok to grow your luxury brand

Luxury is all about elevated experiences and premium products, but with the cost of living squeeze leading consumers to become more cautious and intentional with their purchases, luxury brands need to build highly engaged communities and cultivate increased loyalty with their audiences.

With luxury content across the category as a whole experiencing growth of 124% year on year on the platform, TikTok plays a special role for luxury brands: it's the platform where engaged, purchase-driven audiences are grown [1]. In fact, since joining TikTok, 57% of luxury buyers say they purchase luxury items more often [2].

And with 71% of our users having discovered or heard about a luxury brand or product on TikTok and 68% being more likely to buy a luxury item they saw on TikTok, the opportunity for success on the platform is huge [2].

If you want to learn how to harness TikTok to grow your luxury brand, keep reading.

TikTok's unique path to purchase

TikTok has fundamentally changed how consumers make decisions about luxury products, turning the marketing funnel into an infinite flywheel that provides unlimited opportunities for brands to connect with TikTok users and drive results.

What this means for luxury brands

Luxury lovers on TikTok crave inspiration from the brands they follow: 50% of TikTok luxury lovers follow a luxury brand to keep up with industry trends, 40% follow for outfit or style inspiration and 33% follow a brand for creative inspiration [3]. So, to achieve success on TikTok, we encourage luxury brands to lean into their USPs by posting regular behind-the-scenes content and showcasing the craftmanship of their products.

TikTok users are eager to see more content from luxury brands on the platform. To stay top of mind, luxury brands should adopt an always-on strategy, posting organic beats and paid peaks to capture both last-minute and long-term planners.

Here are four tips to help you craft the best campaigns to engage this audience.

1. Boost consideration with reviews and testimonials

Authentic reviews are key for TikTok users when deciding on purchases: 1 in 2 users are motivated to try luxury products when they see positive reviews or testimonials from TikTok users [3]. Luxury brands should consider servicing users with regular relatable content featuring their products to reach these potential customers; here is a great example.

Encourage your users to interact with your brand and post reviews by responding to comments, asking questions and commenting on other videos. To get started, explore our creative centre – you can utilise our keyword insight tool and review top ads or organic videos to gain inspiration and understand what resonates in the luxury community.

2. Become part of the conversation

From the 'stealth wealth' aesthetic to balletcore, TikTok is shaping the tastes and wants of today's luxury consumer in untold ways, so brands need their ears to the ground if they're going to be part of the conversation and reap the commercial rewards.

TikTok is a gateway for luxury creativity and inspiration: 3 in 4 luxury buyers on TikTok want to feel inspired by luxury brands on TikTok [2]. To inspire this audience and create thumb-stopping content, check out our creative codebook or head to CapCut for Business. Consider driving real-time hype around your next collection drop by creating a live experience that gives the community a behind-the-scenes look into your next launch.

3. Work with the new it crowd

Creators and communities are the next generators of culture-makers, so working with creators is a shortcut to connecting with ready-made audiences through creative styles that have been tried and tested. In fact, 40% of luxury buyers in France want to see brands collaborate with creators and 60% think it's important that products or brands are showcased by a creator they relate to [3].

You can leverage the TikTok Creator Marketplace (TTCM) to find the right creators for your brand and generate creative that really resonates. Try following popular luxury creators such as @manindersachdeva_, @EmmanuelleSits and @virginiegrossat to get a feel for the content that works well on the platform and how your brand could fit in.

4. Supercharge sales across your entire channel strategy

Our full-funnel solutions connect content, brands and community for a seamless shopping experience that delivers strong, measurable impact. We've found that businesses that adopt a full-funnel approach on TikTok, combining brand and performance objectives into single campaigns, see improved campaign performance compared to isolated single-objective campaigns [4]. We recommend bundling our innovative upper-funnel solutions such as TopView, TikTok Pulse and Focused View with our performance solutions, Web Conversion and Video Shopping Ads (VSA).

Advertisers can quantify the impact of upper-funnel campaigns using Brand Lift Study, which provides insights on metrics like ad recall, awareness, attitude, favourability and intent. Advertisers can also measure the incremental sales lift of in-person and online sales with Sales Lift Study (now available in UK, FR, DE and ES). See how Coca-Cola uncovered a 7.88% lift in sales after their TikTok campaign.

Make your mark

Our community's desire for elevated luxury and premium products continues to grow day by day. Tap into our platform by leveraging the above insights and guidance to develop an always-on full-funnel strategy that features both organic content and paid media to drive growth and boost conversions. For more on how TikTok works for luxury brands, discover how Fairfax & Favor used TikTok to increase ROAS by a whopping 217%!

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*“High-entertainment” ads are ones that are relatable; make users feel uplifted/inspired; make them smile/laugh; or show them something they personally like